Off to a Great Start

After leaving on 14 June, we had about a 30 second phone call after midnight Friday morning so D could tell me he arrived safely, but then I didn't hear from him again till Sunday afternoon.  I was driving home from my grandma's out in the boonies of eastern Oklahoma when my phone rang, so I immediately pulled over thinking he may be able to give me his address.  Texting and driving is bad enough, I didn't think I should talk, drive, and write!

"I only have three minutes," was his opening line.

Turns out that in Reception at Ft. Leonard Wood, unlike Ft. Sill last summer, their phones were confiscated ASAP and not returned.  I didn't hear from him again (minus one "not personal" call he made about our paperwork and allowances that lasted two minutes) until Thursday.

Apparently D is staying in the Bravo Hotel - a brand new building of barracks at Ft. Leonard Wood which are really, super nice.  At least compared to the bays he stayed in last summer.  He has a roommate, but I'm sure that's worth it to get a (semi-)private bathroom!  When he was assigned his room, all of his belongings were also returned.  That means he got his phone back and was able to text me (and then call me) almost all day on Thursday!  Even better, he got our Wifi Hotspot back and we were able to FaceTime!  (We live in the future, y'all!)

Since their training wasn't scheduled to start until Sunday, he was given a lot of personal time which means I talked to him a lot on Friday and Saturday, and then on Sunday when their short session of briefings was completed.  Something I'm incredibly grateful for this summer is that during the duration of his training, he will receive personal time each evening.  I'm looking forward to being able to talk with him - at least by text message - every day.  Such a blessing.

So, really - we're off to a great start!

Here We Go Again...

Hello once again, readers (if you're out there).  I know it's been a while since I updated you on our ARNG journey, but I have good reasons excuses.

Since I last updated in September, we have:

• finished up our full-time job school years 
• completed approximately 30 hours of graduate work (holy cow, that's almost a whole degree!)
• hooded a certain someone (me!) with their M.Ed. (you may now address me as Master M)
• switched MOS's (that's the Army's fancy acronym for "job") three times
• shipped D off to AIT

Wait, you must be saying - wait.  Wasn't D in OCPC?  Weren't you doing the happy dance in September because he'd been listed for Traditional OCS - the one where he wouldn't have to be away from home?

And, the answers to those questions are yes.  Officer Candidates that were taking the route D did would not usually have to go to AIT (Advanced Individual Training) - their time at OCS counts as their final job training.  So what happened?  I'll give you the condensed version, shall I?  There were 10-15 candidates in OCPC this year, which as I gather is a rather large class for our area.  Due to budget constraints in our "great" state which are causing ever more belt-tightening, especially where the ARNG is concerned, our OCPC was only given a limited number of slots for OCS of any kind.  This number of slots, I'm sure you can imagine, was less than the number of people vying for them which resulted in an Order of Merit List (OML).

An OML is exactly what it sounds like; the Army gives you a certain number of points for certain things, like PT, Leadership Ability, Prior Service, and so on.  Unfortunately, D had a column with a 0 in it, whereas many of his fellow OCPC-ers did not:  Prior Service.  Since D is not MOS qualified, his 1+ year in the Army doesn't technically count as "Prior Service" since he isn't fully trained for his job.  This resulted in D being toward the bottom of the List, and just like that, he was out of OCPC.

He was sent back to his original RSP unit, which he was so thrilled about, to await further orders.  We knew then that he would have to go to AIT, but we were a little uneasy about it.  D's original MOS (which I cannot recall at the moment... something to do with Engineering) had an AIT upwards of 15 weeks long, and the next one he could get into would interfere with his civilian job.  I do have to hand it to the ARNG (for one thing), they're good about working around D's civilian life, which requires him from August - May every year.  

This scheduling conflict caused D to inquire about changing his MOS to something whose AIT would be short and over the summer.  First, they tried to put him in one - and I don't even remember what it was - that was 4 weeks long right after school got out, but it turned out they didn't really have room in that one, so D is now of MOS 88M - Motor Transport Operator.  This AIT is 7 weeks long, plus a week for Reception, and located at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri - about 6 hours from our home.

He left yesterday.  Here we go again.